THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



305- 



bad job, and had permitted it simply to drift. After 

 merely declaring that the right to water might be ac- 

 quired by appropriation; and after prescribing in the 

 crudest manner possible how appropriation might be 

 accomplished, all the water flowing in the natural 

 streams within its boundaries was turned over to the 

 tender mercies of the mob. 



The result has been that indiscriminate and extrav- 

 agant claims have been made upon many of the streams 

 of the state. Professor Elwood Mead, government ex- 

 pert in charge of irrigation investigations in California, 

 in Bulletin No. 100 of the Department of Agriculture, 

 m page 36, says : "There are three consecutive claims to 

 all the water of the San Joaquin river, and the aggre- 

 gate of all claims in California represents enough moist- 

 ure to submerge the continent." 



Continuing, the professor says: "The evil comes 

 in the failure of the law to afford any adequate protec- 

 tion to those who comply with its provisions. * * * 

 Of the policy of doing nothing, deciding nothing, there 

 has been enough. Something more is needed. This is 

 a comprehensive code of laws, which will be as just and 

 effective as those of Italy or- Canada or Wyoming ; which 

 will represent the knowledge of the twentieth century 

 rather than a blind adherence to the conditions of fifty 

 years ago." 



The flood of litigation: the fighting of law suits 

 from the lower courts to the Supreme Court of the 

 state, and from the Supreme Court of the state to the 

 Supreme Court of the United States and back again; 

 the stirring up of bad blood ; the instigation of open 

 violence; the many instances of bankruptcy, and the 

 general hampering of material progress, are too patent 

 to need more than a passing reference; they are mat- 

 ters of history and common repute. Nor does time in 

 any wise tend to cure this long list of ills ; on the con- 

 trary, it seems to aggravate them. 



Upon the courts has been thrown the burden of 

 sifting and finally adjudicating this mass of extrava- 

 gant and conflicting claims, and that the courts of Cali- 

 fornia are not infallible is evidenced by the fact that 

 they .still cling with fatal tenacity to the fallacy of 

 riparian rights, that relic of medieval England which 

 has been so generally abrogated and set aside in the 

 irrigated communities of both the new and the old 

 world. At best it is but an outcome of the old English 

 common law, and is so antiquated and so poorly adapted 

 to modern conditions that it has been summarily de- 

 clared null and void by both the legislatures and courts 

 of England's own colonies. 



In Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, etc., it has long been 

 a dead letter. Legislatures have legislated and courts 

 decided against it. In a word, the law of riparian 

 rights sets up the proposition that the owner of land 

 fronting upon a natural stream of water has the legal 

 right to demand that the water flowing past his pos- 

 sessions shall not by the act of man be polluted nor 

 diminished in volume for all time. If this law applied 

 to one piece of land fronting upon a stream it would 

 seem in right and justice to apply to all other land 

 fronting upon that stream ; so it would seem that if the 

 law was to bo carried to its extreme logical conclusion, 

 even the riparian owner would be forbidden to so much 

 as lead his horse or cow to water in the stream, lest the 

 animal in treading too near the water's edge should 

 pollute the water, and in slaking its thirst should 

 diminish its flow, to the damage and detriment of each 



and all riparian owners of land on the stream below. 

 In a larger sense the right to divert water for any 

 purpose whatever by a riparian owner would appear to 

 be denied in toto; then irrigation under the reign of the 

 law of riparian rights would hardly seem to be a legal 

 possibility. 



But the courts of California have decided that a 

 riparian owner may not only divert water for the irri- 

 gation of his own land, but he may divert water to be 

 disposed of for speculative purposes. Thus under the 

 name of riparian rights they have set up a new law of 

 their own, which in fact is an absolute abrogation of 

 the principle of riparian rights, and at the same time 

 establishes the right of any owner of land fronting 

 upon a natural stream to not only take all the water 

 he may see fit to use upon his own land, but to set up 

 a water vendor's establishment and to dispose of all 

 the water he may desire to for profit. 



So both the legislatures and the courts of Cali- 

 fornia have confirmed the proposition that the water of 

 the natural streams of the state is the property either 

 of those whose land fronts upon the streams or those 

 who are disposed to acquire it by appropriation ; whereas 

 the advanced theory of water rights declares that the 

 water flowing in the natural streams of the state is 

 primarily the property of the state, but may be used 

 for beneficial purposes when appropriated according to 

 rules and regulations laid down by the state and di- 

 verted under state control. 



The tardy recognition of the importance of irriga- 

 tion by both general and state governments should be 

 a matter of wonderment among all enlightened and 

 thinking men. The rights of miners and navigators to- 

 the public waters of the land have enlisted the prompt 

 and assiduous attention of legislators and publicists, but 

 the rights of the farmers have gone begging for years 

 and years, and even now are regarded with more indif- 

 ference than otherwise. Of course there are reasons for 

 this. Commerce is ever alert and vigilant of its in- 

 terests; agriculture is always modest in its demands. 

 The inauguration of our national Department of Agri- 

 culture is of comparatively recent date, while the recog- 

 nition of the importance of irrigation by the general 

 government seems to be the occurrence of but yesterday. 

 Yet how paramount to the welfare of the whole people 

 is the question of agriculture ! When compared with it 

 the interests of mining and commerce dwindle almost 

 into insignificance. 



Nor has the importance of irrigated agriculture re- 

 ceived the -thought and consideration due it. How many 

 among us stop to think that perhaps the great irrigated 

 west may some time save the country or perhaps the 

 world from a widespread famine. It was only a few 

 years ago that this proposition was accentuated. In 

 1901, when the drouth devastated the great food pro- 

 ducing states of Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska, Colo- 

 rado, with her two millions of acres of irrigated lands, 

 produced most bountiful crops, and not only contrib- 

 uted largely toward making up the deficit in the food- 

 stuffs market caused by the eastern drouth, but lined the 

 pockets of the Colorado farmers with money by reason 

 of the great advance in the price of farm products. 

 Nor did Colorado escape the drouth of that disastrous 

 year, but her supply of irrigation water lying among the 

 peaks of the Rocky Mountains, as well as in her scores 

 of storage reservoirs, saved the whole situation. 



Thus a shortage of rop in the humid regions, no- 



